Highballs For Breakfast

by P.G. Wodehouse

'A splendid anthology' The Times

No writer knew better than PG Wodehouse how a drink can lift the spirits – and he was a master at the high comic effects of having a few too many. Highballs for Breakfast is a handpicked selection of wit, wisdom and comic moments from Wodehouse’s work that involve getting pickled or plastered, or lathered or sozzled, and getting in and out of all manner of scrapes.

If some great writers dwelled on the darker side of drinking, Wodehouse was concerned with the pure pleasure to be had from ‘the magic bottle’ and getting outside of the contents of a tall glass. His imperishable writing displays a well-turned appreciation for all kinds of booze – cocktails, champagne, port, whiskey and brandy (with soda, of course); but also the humble pint, and even the infamous poteen.

This sparkling collection captures Wodehouse at his best on being terribly thirsty, or drowning one’s sorrows, or knocking one back for Dutch courage. It finds him celebrating the special atmospheres of the English country pub and the Manhattan barroom. And it shows him to be exceptionally good on hangovers, but equally so on hangover cures, such as the legendary pick-me-ups prepared for Bertie Wooster by the dependable Jeeves.

For all lovers of a laugh and a drink, Highballs for Breakfast is a tonic, a bracer, and a tissue-restorer.

Genres: Humor

176 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2018

About the author

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE, was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read over 40 years after his death. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of prewar English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career.

An acknowledged master of English prose, Wodehouse has been admired both by contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and by more recent writers such as Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie and Terry Pratchett. Sean O'Casey famously called him "English literature's performing flea", a description that Wodehouse used as the title of a collection of his letters to a friend, Bill Townend.

Best known today for the Jeeves and Blandings Castle novels and short stories, Wodehouse was also a talented playwright and lyricist who was part author and writer of fifteen plays and of 250 lyrics for some thirty musical comedies. He worked with Cole Porter on the musical Anything Goes (1934) and frequently collaborated with Jerome Kern and Guy Bolton. He wrote the lyrics for the hit song Bill in Kern's Show Boat (1927), wrote the lyrics for the Gershwin/Romberg musical Rosalie (1928), and collaborated with Rudolf Friml on a musical version of The Three Musketeers (1928).

Reviews

[Melora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wodehouse is funny, and Wodehouse on the delights (and dangers) of drink is really funny. This is a collection of bits from across the oeuvre, all related to alcohol consumption in one way or another, well and wittily introduced by the compiler/editor, Richard T. Kelly. Wodehouse's world is shamelessly frivolous, a place where...

"We may be dimly aware that out in the world there are hearts that ache and bleed: but we order another gin and ginger and forget about them. Tragedy, to us, has come to mean merely the occasional flatness of a bottle of beer."

This was just what I needed to lift my spirits, so to speak, in these troubled times, and I enjoyed it very much indeed.

[Ben Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always hard to know where to start when investigating the work of a prolific author. The chance to investigate this P.G. Wodehouse that I've heard of for years in a sort of 'best of' compilation seemed like the perfect solution to such a dilemma.

As collections go, this could have proved to be one of the stranger ones, merely being snippets from 37 of his books in which characters get drunk, don't get drunk, want to get drunk, regret getting drunk, and perhaps get just slightly tipsy. The selection, however, was excellent, as was the introduction to each snippet.

If this book is anything to go by, Mr Wodehouse must be one of the funniest writers I have ever encountered. I tried to hold in my laughter while lounging on a sunny bench near the store I bought this from, while reading in a nice, cozy trattoria and while waiting at the luggage carousel in an airport. Having finally made it home, and resumed my reading with a morning coffee and slice of toast, I could give this book the proper laugh it deserved - a head back, eyes closed kind of laugh that I am unaccustomed to getting from books.

I shall be investigating the works of this author more thoroughly in the future.

[Selah · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this greatly increased my Wodehouse TBR, focusing exclusively on alcohol was tedious after awhile.

[Chetan Tyagi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highballs for Breakfast was a bit of a damp squib for me. I had picked this up assuming it'll be a collection of stories about the "right stuff" - quite like the one with Golf that I'd read a while earlier.

However, it turns out that this one is a collection of passages (some as short as a couple of lines at times) from various Wodehouse stories. One problem with that is that these are usually too short and without context that they don't work that well. Also, annoyingly, these passages are interspersed with the compiler's commentary which rather kills the mood.

That said, some of the cited works are pretty witty including Augustus Fink Nottle's all time classic scene at Market Snodsbury Grammar School (I've notched up the rating to 3 on account of this one piece itself!).

Overall, a rather disappointing experience. A measly 3 for me.

[Sadie-Jane Huff · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was alright. I still prefer just reading his books

[Chaz Wyman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed to find that this was not a previously undiscovered Wodehouse novel, but a series of gobbets selected by a John Kelly, on the topic of booze.
So this book is misattributed as a PGW book. Naturally gobbets of PGW on the aspects of the demon drink are going to be damn fanny, and so they are.
The miner of these little gems writes a intro to each excerpt and he, Mr Kelly takes on the timbre and flow of PGW's writing. Which is good.
This goes quite well with good choices and reflexions on the great man's work.
HOWEVER. I think Mr Kelly had one too many; and soaked up a little too much of the restorative fluid; and placed himself on the outside of one or three cocktails, because the project is abandoned in the penultimate chapter when, instead of putting up a few pages of each selection, he decides to fill out the book by dumping no less than 40 pages from the saga of Gussie Finknottle. Rather than chose more excerpts he decides to be lazy.
So rather attract a 4, the book only really deserves a 2.
One imagines this book on sale in a gift shop rather than a real book shop. Or remaindered in one of those holiday shops with sticks of rock, jigsaws, felt tip pens, and other "amusements".
Not sure who I would recommend this book to.
Maybe a good book to have in a dentists waiting room?

[Robert Bagnall · Rating 2 out of 5]

Remember ‘Disney Time’, the cheap TV show that only ever got shown on bank holidays with clips from Mickey Rat’s movies strung together with links by some C-list celebrity? Shit, wasn’t it? But, being pre-streaming, pre-BluRay, pre-DVD, even pre-VHS, and with the Rat reluctant to let the movies air on the tellybox and only three channels anyway, there was an inescapable commercial logic to it.

Well, this is ‘Wodehouse Time’ but without the same rationale - just go read the books! It’s an oddly lumpy anthology, with some chapters a handful of pages, but the penultimate one a massive lazy bite out of its source. It’s also tiresome throughout, which may be the effect of being sober in amongst drunks, or may just be my up to date take on Wodehouse overall. And, whilst I’m normally a staunch defender of keeping texts as they were originally written, even I find the inclusion of “nigger minstrel of the old school” troubling in a 2016 publication.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

a quick, light, amusing read

i might've appreciated it more if i were more or less familiar with wodehouse, but as is, this cemented my resolve to stay away from his full-length novels for as long as i possibly can. his tendency to go on and on is not unlike myself and alas, i think his manner of speech has tinted mine.

spiffy alcohol recommendations and hangover cures included.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining selection of Wodehouse snippets on the subject of strong drink, some of which were new to me. Not a volume to read right through, perhaps, more of a bathroom bookshelf dipper, and as such, very apt for the purpose.

[Vivien Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great and joyful read. Very amusing book. Very well laid out with excerpts of various books all relating to drink. Always fun to read anything by Wodehouse. This was a great read. Thoroughly recommended.

[Shravani Sawant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent collection sourced from multiple PG Wodehouse books - could not have been an easy task.
While it is definitely not a replacement for a good PG Wodehouse book, which has its own charm, redundancy, and quirky monotony, it is a good anthology of the greats.

[Duncan Hollingsworth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prose and wit epitomized.

[sunflowerbooknook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful, an absolute pleasure.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a cheapo idea, just cobbling together various extracts from Wodehouse that have boozy themes. That said, the extracts are of course beautiful and should send their readers to the source for more, so its existence is more than justified.

[reveurdart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splendid selection.